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Authors: Greg King

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Justice Hawke read it, then declared, “It may be in a woman’s handwriting, but it’s not very legible.” He was then given a typewritten transcript of the letter. “This is evidence against nobody,” he said loudly, clearly annoyed. “I do not understand it.”
Birkett ignored the judge’s consternation and continued to question Wallis.
“Did the finding of the note cause you considerable distress?”
“It did.”
“Did you complain to your husband at that time?”
“No, I thought I better not, in the hope conditions would improve.”
“Did they improve?”
“I’m afraid they did not.”
This note remains a great mystery, for it was never entered into evidence. It is possible it was a note from Mary Kirk Raffray, although, at the time, it seems unlikely that she and Ernest had begun their liaison.
Wallis then testified that she had received another letter, addressed to her but intended for her husband, a letter thanking Ernest in a warm, loving way for a gift of some roses. After this, she had sought counsel and hired detectives. Birkett then submitted a letter she had written afterward to her husband:
Dear Ernest:
I have just learned that while you have been away, instead of being on business, as you have led me to believe, you have been staying at the Hotel Bray with a lady. I am sure you realize this is conduct which I cannot possibly overlook and must insist you do not continue to live here with me. This only confirms the suspicions I have had for a long time. I am therefore instructing my solicitors to take proceedings for divorce.
 
With this letter, Wallis finished her time on the witness stand and quietly slipped back into her seat alongside Birkett and Frampton.
Birkett next called two employees who worked at the Hotel de Paris in Bray. Each testified that on July 28, 1936 they had served breakfast in bed to a man they identified as Ernest Simpson and a woman called Buttercup Kennedy—almost certainly Mary Kirk.
With this, the plaintiff’s case was over. No one questioned precisely how Wallis had managed to ascertain her need for a detective on the same day that Ernest would conveniently commit a public act of adultery. Hawke seemed suspicious. For several minutes, he said nothing. Finally, he began to question Birkett about the incident at the Hotel de Paris.
Without waiting for Hawke to finish his question, Birkett interrupted him by saying, “I assume that what your Lordship has in mind—”
But Hawke would not let him complete his sentence. “How do you know what is in my mind?” he asked angrily. “What is it that I have in mind, Mr. Birkett?”
“I think, with great deference,” replied Birkett gently, “that Your Lordship may have in mind what is known as ‘ordinary hotel evidence,’ where the name of the lady is not disclosed. I thought that might have been in Your Lordship’s mind.”
Hawke was silent for several moments. He eyed Wallis suspiciously, then declared, “That is what it must have been, Mr. Birkett. I am glad of your help.”
“The lady’s name,” Birkett said, “was mentioned in the petition, my Lord, so now I ask for a decree
nisi
with costs against the respondent.”
“Yes, costs against the respondent, I am afraid,” Hawke agreed with great hesitation. “I suppose I must in these unusual circumstances. So you may have it, with costs.”
“Decree
nisi
with costs?” asked Birkett.
“Yes,” Hawke replied, “I suppose so.”
14
With this, it was all over. Wallis crept out of the courtroom, but she paused long enough to speak to a reporter from United Press International, who had asked her if she was planning to return to America now. “I will never return to the United States,” Wallis said directly. “After all the nasty things said about me I could never show my face there again. I have never experienced anything like it in my life. I don’t know why they should talk about me that way I certainly am not that important.... The things that have been said about me are almost beyond belief. I have never seen or heard anything like it. I feel terribly hurt and humiliated.”
15
Ironically, on the same day, Win Spencer was divorced from his second wife, Miriam, in San Diego, California. She had charged him with desertion, drunkenness, cruelty, and physical violence in breaking up their furniture in his drunken rages. Some enterprising reporters tracked him down a few weeks later; while he refused to comment on either of his two divorces, he was gracious where his first wife was concerned: “Wallis was one of the finest women I ever knew. My work did not allow me to partake of the social life which Wallis loved so dearly. Gradually we drifted apart. I suppose that is the price we pay for a career.... I wish her nothing but the best.”
16
The American press gave the Simpson divorce enormous play. On October 26, the day before the divorce, the
New York Journal-American
wrote: “In all probability, in June 1937, one month after the ceremonies of the coronation, will follow the festivities of the marriage (of King Edward VIII) to the very charming and intelligent Mrs. Ernest Simpson, of Baltimore, Maryland, USA.”
17
Another American newspaper headlined the event famously, “
KING’S MOLL RENO’D IN WOLSEY’S HOME TOWN
.”
18
In England reaction was far more subdued, but critics were virulent and vocal. One man remarked, “The courts of law are open to all—like the Ritz Hotel.” Few acquainted with the facts of the case believed that there had been no collusion. George Buchanan, an MP from Glasgow, declared: “The whole law courts were set at defiance for this one man. A divorce case was heard when every one of you knows it was a breaking of the law. The law is desecrated. The courts are thrust aside.”
19
“Uncensored copies of
Time
, the first publication to take notice of the scandal,” wrote Jessica Mitford, “were hard to come by. Only those lucky enough to know someone who received a subscription direct, from America, were able to follow the progress of the shocking affair week by week. All reference to it had been neatly scissored out of the news-stand copies.”
20
The British Royal Family, especially the Duke and Duchess of York and Queen Mary, were highly suspicious of the Simpson divorce. All believed that there had been collusion. However, a subsequent investigation by Thomas Barnes, the King’s proctor, and Sir Donald Somervell, the attorney general, found that “the divorce—even if it had some collusive fact—e.g. the willingness of Mrs. S. that her husband should be unfaithful—was not a collusive divorce in the ordinary or any provable sense.”
21
The day after the divorce, Harold Nicolson wrote: “There are very serious rumours that the King will make her Duchess of Edinburgh and marry. The point is whether he is so infatuated as to insist on her becoming Queen or whether the marriage will be purely morganatic.... I gather from other people that there is considerable danger.”
22
17
 
Growing Troubles
 
O
N OCTOBER
16, while Wallis was away at Felixstowe, the King held an important meeting at Buckingham Palace with William Maxwell Aitken, First Lord Beaverbrook. Beaverbrook, a confident, crafty Canadian, had made his fortune in industrial construction; in 1918 he had joined the British cabinet as minister of information in charge of propaganda. With his fortune, he bought control of the
London Evening Standard
and the
Daily Express,
and founded the
Sunday Express
.
The King did not know Beaverbrook particularly well, but he recognized that the press baron could become a powerful ally in any coming war over his relationship with Wallis. Beaverbrook recalled what took place that evening at Buckingham Palace:
The King asked me to help in suppressing all advance news of the Simpson divorce, and in limiting publicity after the event. He stated his case calmly and with great cogency and force.
The reasons he gave for his wish were that Mrs. Simpson was ill, unhappy and distressed by the thought of notoriety. Notoriety would attach to her only because she had been his guest on the
Nahlin
and at Balmoral. As the publicity would be due to association with himself, he felt it his duty to protect her.
These reasons appeared satisfactory to me, and so I took part in a negotiation to confine publication of the news to a report of Mrs. Simpson’s divorce, making no mention of her friendship with the King.
1
 
At the same time, the King also met with Esmond Harmsworth, son of Lord Rothermere, the press baron who owned London’s
Daily Mail
and the
Evening News.
Harmsworth supervised his father’s newspapers, and as with Beaverbrook, the King appealed to his sense of loyalty to the throne and asked that he refrain from mentioning Mrs. Simpson in his publications. Like Beaverbrook, Harmsworth agreed. This gentlemen’s agreement was to last for nearly the entire abdication crisis. Having satisfied himself that disaster had been averted, David left that same Friday evening and went to Sandringham, where he was to spend the weekend.
The day before this meeting took place, Alexander Hardinge had first learned that the Simpson divorce case was to be heard at Ipswich in two weeks. Hardinge at once wrote to Prime Minister Baldwin, begging him “to see the King and ask if these proceedings could not be stopped, for the danger in which they placed him [HM] was becoming every day greater.”
2
Hardinge was quick to seize upon the issue. In the past, he had made little secret of his disapproval of the King, and it seems unlikely that his motivation that October was a personal concern over Edward VIII’s well-being. The traditional analysis of the situation would suggest that Hardinge acted in good faith, fearful of the effect that the relationship between the King and Wallis was having on the prestige of the throne. On the other hand, it has been suggested more than once that the King’s liaison simply provided a convenient excuse upon which his enemies at court were able to act in an effort to force his removal from the throne.
Technically, David was free to marry whenever and whomever he wished. It would be unconstitutional, however, as Sir Donald Somervell, the attorney general, informed Baldwin that October, for the King to marry against the advice of his ministers. Knowing this, Hardinge worked tirelessly. His dual strategy was to persuade Baldwin to make it quite clear that the King’s marriage to Wallis was unacceptable, therefore putting the King in the position in which in order to marry her he would have to reject his prime minister’s advice. His second plan was to gather evidence demonstrating that such a marriage was unacceptable to the people of the empire.
Hardinge owed his loyalty to the King, but this did not stop him from conducting secret meetings with Baldwin. On October 17 he arranged to meet the prime minister at Cumberland Lodge, a grace-and-favor residence rented to Lord Fitzalan in Windsor Great Park. Also present were Lord Cranborne, undersecretary of state for foreign affairs and later to succeed as fifth Marquess of Salisbury; the Duke of Norfolk, the nation’s senior peer and the Earl Marshal of the kingdom; and Lord Kemsley, who, with his brother Lord Camrose, was the proprietor of the
Sunday Times
, the
Daily Telegraph,
and the
Financial Times
. Hardinge pressed the prime minister to urge the King to ask Mrs. Simpson to drop her divorce action and to make their relationship less conspicuous.
3
Hardinge also met with Theodore Goddard and warned him that a crisis threatened unless the King could be convinced to stop the Simpson divorce. Goddard conveyed this news to Walter Monckton, David’s friend and adviser, who, in turn, informed the King of Hardinge’s visit to Goddard.
At the same time, Hardinge left an urgent message at Sandringham for the King saying that the prime minister wished to meet with him on important business as soon as possible. David declared that he would return to the Fort on Tuesday, October 20, and meet the prime minister at that time. Over the weekend, David, knowing that Hardinge had approached Goddard and that he had also been in touch with the prime minister, determined that the government was about to push for a declaration of his intentions.
Baldwin arrived at the Fort at ten on Tuesday morning as scheduled and was shown into the drawing room. The prime minister was clearly nervous; he asked for a whiskey and soda, much to David’s surprise. Nevertheless, the King rang for a servant and asked for whiskey to be brought. Baldwin began to mix the drink himself, then turned to the King and asked if he would like one as well. “No, thank you, Mr. Baldwin,” he replied. “I never take a drink before seven o’clock in the evening.”
4
Finally, Baldwin asked about Wallis’s upcoming divorce action. “Must this case really go on?” Baldwin inquired.
“Mr. Baldwin,” David answered, “I have no right to interfere with the affairs of an individual. It would be wrong were I to attempt to influence Mrs. Simpson just because she happens to be a friend of the King’s.”
5
True to his word and indeed his inclinations, David refused to interfere. During the whole time Wallis was at Felixstowe, he was lonely and restless, unable to concentrate. Winston Churchill recalled the effect of separation from Wallis on the King: “I saw him when she’d gone away for a fortnight. He was miserable, haggard, dejected, not knowing what to do. Then I saw him when she’d been back a day or two, and he was a different man—gay, debonair, self-confident. Make no mistake, he can’t live without her....”
6
Wallis returned to London immediately after her divorce case was heard. It took two hours for her to drive from Ipswich to her new house at Cumberland Terrace; she was scarcely through the door before her maid, Mary Cain, announced that the King was on the telephone. He was absolutely overcome with joy and relief, for he had feared, until the last, that some circumstance would arise which would cancel the proceedings in Ipswich.
Later that afternoon, David kept a number of appointments, including a meeting with Prime Minister Mackenzie King of Canada. “It had been hoped,” noted Geoffrey Dawson, proprietor of the
Times
, in his diary, “that the P.M. of Canada might have said something on this occasion about the growing anxiety in his own country. He was in a strong position to give such a warning; but it was quite clear from his conversation with me that he had done nothing of the kind—had indeed, if anything, made matters worse by discoursing on the King’s popularity in the Dominions.”
7
That same evening, Wallis and David were reunited when he came to her house at Cumberland Terrace to dine. Reluctantly, he told her of Baldwin’s visit the week before but again reassured her that all would be well. For David, the evening was one of celebration, and nothing would dampen his happiness that the woman he loved was now on her way to divorce. He pulled from his pocket a box from Cartier and presented it to her: inside was the massive Mogul emerald, set in a platinum ring. It was to be Wallis’s engagement ring, and was engraved on the back: “WE are ours now, 27 X 36. [October 27, 1936]”
On November 3 the King presided at the state opening of Parliament. Traditionally, the sovereign rode in state in a magnificent carriage procession, escorted by members of the household cavalry; a violent storm, however, caused David to cancel these plans, and instead he arrived at the Palace of Westminster in the royal Daimler. Within the House of Lords, every available space had been filled with inquisitive peers and peeresses. The King’s speech included references to the strengthening of defense forces; concern over the growing tensions in Europe, China, and Japan; and, ironically, discussion of preparations for the upcoming coronation as well as his intention to go to India to repeat the Delhi durbar, which his parents had undertaken in 1911.
That evening, Wallis dined with Chips and Honor Channon at their home in Belgrave Square. According to Chips, she was “gay and amusing. We discussed her divorce, which she says was at Ernest’s instigation, and at no wish of hers.”
8
From her comments, it is apparent that Wallis still believed that she would be able to avoid a crisis. “I am lying here making all sorts of
wise
decisions,” she told Edwina Mountbatten. She explained that she was determined to leave England and that “soon the charming people, the man in the street and the lunatics will forget me, and all will be well once more.”
9
Two days later, Wallis joined David for a dinner party given by the King’s lord-in-waiting, Perry Brownlow, and his wife, Kitty, at their London house. Also present was Lord Beaverbrook, who met Wallis for the first time. “She appeared to me to be a simple woman,” he recalled. “Her smile was kindly and pleasing, and her conversation interspersed with protestations of ignorance of politics and with declarations of simplicity of character and outlook.... I was greatly impressed by the way the other women greeted her.... All but one of them greeted Mrs. Simpson with a kiss. She received it with appropriate dignity, but in no case did she return it....”
10
On Friday, November 6, Wallis attended a party given by Emerald Cunard. During the evening, Edith, Lady Londonderry, cornered Wallis and told her that “if the King had any idea of marrying her, he ought to be quickly disabused of the notion, since the English people would never stand for a Queen or King’s Consort who had been twice divorced and whose previous husbands were both still living.”
11
For Wallis, this simply confirmed her own growing fears. Three days later, Wallis’s aunt Bessie arrived aboard RMS
Queen Mary
, filled with disgust at the coverage her niece, and her relationship with the King, were receiving in the American press. The papers back in the United States, she told Wallis, were filled with mocking stories about the Warfields and the Montagues, their finances and lack thereof, and even allegations that her mother had run a boardinghouse in a poor part of Baltimore. “You’d think that we’d all come right out of Tobacco Road!” she exclaimed with disgust.
12
That same evening, David finally confessed to Walter Monckton in the Empire Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace that he intended to marry Wallis once she was free. This came as no great surprise to Monckton, but he advised that the King should keep his intentions private; there was no point, he declared, in announcing the plan now, because Mrs. Simpson would not possibly be free to marry until the spring. “I could see at once,” Monckton recalled, “that he did not agree with this advice because he felt that he could not go forward to the Coronation on 12 May 1937 meaning in his heart to make the marriage whatever happened and, as he felt, deceiving the government and the people into imagining that he had dropped the association or, at any rate, did not intend to marry.”
13
Monckton, well aware of the King’s character and determination, realized that there was little he could do to dissuade David from his stated course of action. “The trouble,” wrote Monckton, “was that on this matter his mind was made up by himself long before he knew it, and this is the explanation of what must have seemed to many a strange and obtuse obstinancy.”
14
On November 11, the King performed what was to become his last public engagement in London by attending Remembrance Day ceremonies in Whitehall and laying a wreath at the Cenotaph, which served as a monument to the war dead. As soon as this duty had been completed, David left London for a tour of the home fleet at the Portland Naval Base. This proved a triumphant success. “No one could deny his surpassing talent for inspiring enthusiasm and managing great crowds,” noted Sir Samuel Hoare, then First Lord of the Admiralty. “He seemed to know personally every officer and seaman in the Fleet.... In my long experience of mass meetings I never saw one so completely dominated by a single personality.... Elbowing his way through the crowd, he walked to the end of the hall and started community singing to the accompaniment of a seaman’s mouth organ. When he came back to the platform, he made an impromptu speech that brought the house down. Then a seaman in the crowd proposed three cheers for him, and there followed an unforgettable scene of the wildest and most spontaneous enthusiasm.”
15

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